Today at the annual Microsoft //BUILD event in Seattle, Washington, we made exciting announcements and discussed a wealth of recent Microsoft investments that continue to empower every developer, data scientist, and data professional to do more with data. We shared new investments for Azure Cosmos DB as well as the general availability of Azure Database Migration Service to make it easier for customers to transition to the cloud. 

Only Microsoft delivers a consistent and global platform optimized for hybrid environments with a rich set of data and analytics technologies that empower today’s innovators to unleash the power of data and reimagine the possibilities that will improve our world. 

Accelerating digital transformation for the Intelligent-Cloud, Intelligent-Edge Era

To help accelerate digital transformation, Microsoft delivers integrated and highly scalable data and analytics solutions to help organizations capture, store, and process, all data in real-time for driving intelligence into applications, to the edge, and back across the organization. Here is a summary of our recent data and analytics investments that help organizations unleash the power of data.

• Azure Cosmos DB announcements: Today we announced Azure Cosmos DB updates that will further cement Cosmos DB as the ubiquitous choice for developers building applications for this new era. With new multi-master at global scale capabilities designed to support both the cloud and the edge – on-premises and IoT devices as regions, increased security through the general availability of VNET, and general availability of Bulk Executor library delivers a 10x improvement in write throughput—import over a terabyte of data in under an hour. Since launching at Build last year, Azure Cosmos DB has experienced exponential growth and is used by thousands of organizations worldwide. With Azure Cosmos DB, ASOS, a leading online retailer, can handle >100 million unique daily visitors across >200 countries and >100 thousand products and Jet.com leverages Azure Cosmos DB for their commerce platform which allows them to scale 10-20x during peak shopping days.
• Azure SQL Data Warehouse: To help organizations derive fast insights from exponentially growing data, last week we announced the general availability of the Compute Optimized Gen2 tier of Azure SQL Data Warehouse. With this performance optimized tier, we are bringing the best of Microsoft software and hardware innovations to dramatically accelerate query performance and concurrency for our customers. Azure SQL Data Warehouse Compute Optimized Gen2 tier sets new performance standards for cloud data warehousing. Customers now get up to 5 times better query performance, 4 times more concurrency, and 5 times higher computing power compared to the current generation. It can now serve 128 concurrent queries from a single cluster, the highest of any cloud data warehousing service. And, we deliver these performance gains without a price increase.
• Azure Databricks general availability: To accelerate an organizations ability to unleash the power of data, we recently released Azure Databricks into general availability. Azure Databricks is designed in collaboration with Databricks whose founders started the Spark research project at UC Berkeley, which later became Apache Spark. Our goal with Azure Databricks is to help customers accelerate innovation and simplify the process of building Big Data & AI solutions by combining the best of Databricks and Azure. Customers like E.ON are able to analyze nearly a terabyte of wind turbine data in a few minutes versus, previously, it took hours.

Empowering a hybrid environment for maximum choice and savings

Microsoft is the only organization with a consistent and connected platform across on-premises and cloud which helps organizations make the most of their existing technology investments. Today at Build, we continued to make this journey the best in the industry.

• Azure Database Migration Service: Today we announced the general availability of Azure Database Migration Service, which has already migrated almost tens of thousands databases to Azure. The Azure Database Migration Service is designed as a seamless, end-to-end solution for moving on-premises databases to Azure, with SQL Server to Azure SQL Database being the first supported migration path. Soon the service will also support migration of your MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle databases into Azure. Many customers are enjoying the benefits of Azure Database Migration Service including Innovative Systems who have streamlined their migration initiatives and reduced downtime.
• Moving MySQL and PostgreSQL to Azure: While getting there is part of the journey, the destination is equally important. In addition to supporting SQL Server workloads, we are making it possible to move any application to Azure with little or no application code changes by supporting fully managed database service support for MongoDB, Cassandra, MySQL, and PostgreSQL databases. We also recently made our Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL generally available. With thousands of customers across 82 countries, Azure database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL have enjoyed tremendous growth since previewing last year at Microsoft Build, proving that organizations want database choices delivered on a simple, fully managed service platform that removes the complexities around maintenance, scale, and data availability protection.
• Moving SQL Server to Azure: For SQL Server, we recently made it easier to migrate to a fully managed SQL Server service with a new deployment option in Azure SQL Database, Managed Instance. Managed Instance offers full engine compatibility with existing SQL Server deployments (back to SQL Server 2008) including capabilities like SQL Server Agent, DBMail, and Change Data Capture, to name a few, and built-on the highly productive SQL Database service. For SQL Server customers with SSIS implementations, we also support SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) in Azure Data Factory, making it seamless for customers to also migrate their SSIS workloads into Azure.
• Azure Hybrid Benefit program for SQL Server: Now expanded to cover SQL Server, the Azure Hybrid Benefit program ensures that Azure is the most economical destination for SQL Server workloads. You can now move your on-premises SQL Server licenses with active Software Assurance to Managed Instance and, soon, also your SQL Server Integration Services licenses to Azure Data Factory for discounted pricing, helping you save up to 55%*.

When you add it all up, Microsoft has the most comprehensive and compelling data and AI platform on the planet. Only Microsoft offers expansive programs that deliver unprecedented value for your existing investments. I’m excited to see how you and your organization continue to innovate and transform your world!

* Pricing for an Azure SQL Database Managed Instance price on US East price. The savings are calculated for Base rate when compared to fully priced (license included). The savings excludes Software Assurance costs, which may vary based on EA agreement.